Did you hear about the retired proctologist? He spent 40 years saying "what's a place like this doing in a girl like you?"

14 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First)

Beans15

Posted - 03/17/2013 : 13:27:46 Hey Slozo, since when does the NHL pay for travel expenses? I can't find anything proving this anywhere. I can find various locations where it is discussed the team covers travel expense.

Care to proving a link of some type? I'd love to read it.

Guest9848

Posted - 03/17/2013 : 10:37:53 And hopefully in the future they move Florida to Quebec and Tampa to Markham, thats where Stamkos is from anyways. lol

Guest9848

Posted - 03/17/2013 : 10:35:53 And also the closest teams to Florida and Tampa are Carolina and Nashville so they really don't have any neighbours, Hockey isn't too popular in the deep south. And one of the best parts of it is the huge numbers of snowbirds from Ontario that go to Florida every winter. Tonnes of old people that retire in Florida from Toronto Ottawa Buffalo Detroit. Old people that are original six fans. I think its a pretty good spot for the Florida teams.

Guest9848

Posted - 03/17/2013 : 10:23:37 I believe the alignment is focused more on timezone than its is on distance. While Florida and Tampa are long distance from the rest of the eastern division its in the same timezone so the negative effects of travel are essentially gone. I am personally very excited for Toronto to reignite its rivalry with Detroit, aswell as plenty more Montreal and Boston games.

umteman

Posted - 03/16/2013 : 05:28:29 slozo - no problem; as a moderator such is your function, and wouldn't have been necessary if I had gotten it right to begin with.

Did you hear about the retired proctologist? He spent 40 years saying "what's a place like this doing in a girl like you?"

Statman

Posted - 03/15/2013 : 16:20:11 Seems to me like the Sakic Division needs to be called the Hull division.

JOSHUACANADA

Posted - 03/15/2013 : 10:39:25 I predict next years weak division to be the Sakic division. While Chicago should be the cream of the crop the remainder will make the playoffs based on positioning between 2-3 with the wildcards in the west coming from the Gretzky division, provided the schedule gods are kind to the Gretzky division.

slozo

Posted - 03/15/2013 : 05:00:43 I forgot to apologise to Umteman for changing the topic heading, but felt it appropriate since the discussion had already been started and it was just formally approved. Hope you don't mind . . . or think I was on crack for doing that

No matter what, some cities are going to have more travel no matter WHAT other cities you group them with (see: Edmonton and Dallas), and some cities are inevitably going to have it easier (see: most of the Eastern Conference minus the Florida teams). It is what it is, accept it boys.

umteman - travel expenses are covered by the league, btw. Additionally, think of the benefits for Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa getting a restful trip to Florida every few weeks in the middle of the frozen season . . . honestly, as a Leaf fan, I don't think it's that big a deal (although admittedly not the biggest fan of it, I get why it has been done). For me, it's no excuse for losing, and obviously it gives a big boost to Florida and TB for their revenues. Toronto and Montreal, and even Boston and Detroit, are gonna help their bottom line when they come to visit more often.

I think this was largely a financial move on the part of the NHL, and a savvy one. The only "hockey" move was really moving Detroit back to be bunched together with their old rivals; and putting Columbus with the east where they belong.

The Dallas move was about TV revenue, maybe a bit about gate - in a division where all are within a time zone of each other, means not as many very late start games.

Winnipeg moves into the same division/time zone, obviously this HAD to be done eventually. Bottom line, it only helps their revenues as well - in the same division as their closest geographical rival (Minny). This is perfect, they are where they should be.

That "Sakic Division" is the most interesting to me, as I think it will spout a few new good rivalries. Colorado and Dallas is one for sure (remember their battles in the playoffs way back when?), Winnipeg/Minny is another to look forward to, and past Chicago and the ever-competetive Nashville . . . it looks like a wide-open division to me.

I also love it that Edmonton and Calgary (and Vancouver) are in the same division as those southern / California teams . . . again, it's the best of a difficult situation I think to put them within a time zone of each other. On the other hand, things just got tougher for those three Canadian teams to make the playoffs, as LA and San Jose are very solid teams, and Phoenix and Anaheim always seem very competetive these last dozen years.

"Take off, eh?" - Bob and Doug

JOSHUACANADA

Posted - 03/14/2013 : 17:21:51 It does seem a little slanted to the "Lemieux division" travel wise, but it is leaps and bounds better than the old Divisional format.

umteman

Posted - 03/14/2013 : 16:20:34 The problem here is that travel expenses aren't fair. Those in your "lemieux" division are all nicely located in a tight region. But how many times a season does Montreal have to travel all the way to Florida and vice versa.

Hey it would be nice to see the return of divisions/conferences named for those legendary old coaches; eg., Adams, Smythe, Campbell.

Did you hear about the retired proctologist? He spent 40 years saying "what's a place like this doing in a girl like you?"

slozo

Posted - 03/14/2013 : 11:14:34 Realignment has been approved by the BOG now, and it's official!

Effective for the 2013/14 season, the NHL will look like this (please note - I made up my own names for each division ):

PLAYOFF FORMAT:- top three teams in each Conference's 2 Divisions get an automatic berth in the playoffs- the remaining two spots in each conference go to the two teams with the next best records (with the usual tie-breakers I assume). Thus, there could be 5 from one conference, 3 from the other conference potentially . . . and, like today's format, still could have a team with less points have a higher ranking than other teams with more points (ie the third best in one division, has a lower point total than the 5th best team in the other division)-It would be divisional playoffs, not conference playoffs, so 1 vs. 4, 2 vs 3 in the first round. The two fourth seeds would be made up of the wild-card teams. The top division winner based on regular-season points in the standings would face off against the lower-ranked wild-card team. The other division winner would play the higher-ranked wild-card.-First-round winners then meet in second round in the division championship; Third round sees Pacific winner vs. Mid-West winner in Western Conference finals; Central winner versus Atlantic winner in Eastern Conference finals; Eastern and Western Conference champions meet in Stanley Cup finals.

Bolded teams are those that have moved to a totally new division/conference alignment; in italics, teams that are a bit separated from their division rivals geographically.

Discuss!

"Take off, eh?" - Bob and Doug

Alex116

Posted - 03/08/2013 : 14:22:53 Slozo, did you read his 2nd post? Unless i'm confused, he originally misunderstood/misread what was written.

Posted - 03/07/2013 : 16:06:47 Sorry, I misinterpreted "signs - off". Seems realignment will take place but is subject to reevaluation - and I think it should be as some teams are going to incur increased travel expenses.

Did you hear about the retired proctologist? He spent 40 years saying "what's a place like this doing in a girl like you?"